Looking Back
by ReachingForMyHeaven
Summary: Nine jinchuuriki, and nine moments of their lives.
1. Chapter 1

Nine random prompts for nine different jinchuuriki

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**Forever** - _Gaara_

On some level he knows that nothing lasts forever. People get hurt, they get sick, they die. The assassins lying dead on his bedroom floor attest to that. But at six years old and with his uncle promising the world, he lets himself believe.

**Ghost** -_ Yugito_

She feels some connection to the dead, but she doesn't know if it is because of the people she has killed or the legends attached to the Nekomata. Her sensei explains that her teammates are creeped out by her habit of meditating in graveyards, but she knows they will never understand, and ghosts are better listeners anyway

**Puppet** - _Yagura_

He is aware of the thoughts that don't belong to him, of the orders he doesn't want to give, of the Mist slowly turning to blood outside his office. He sees the Sharingan in his dreams, in his waking moments, and he knows that he cannot escape it.

**World **- _Roshi_

He is itching to wander the world, because there is much to learn outside of this claustrophobic crater. He asks permission to leave the village, and the Tsuchikage tells him no. So Roshi leaves anyway and returns with a semi-tamed bijuu and a new bloodline limit. It is the last time the Tsuchikage denies any of his requests.

**Beginnings** -_ Han_

A young Roshi introduces himself to the imposing brick wall standing in front of him. The man appears to be wearing a furnace, and the only thing visible on his seven foot frame was his narrowed eyes and malicious glare. Roshi asks the man if his face is stuck like that, and Han kicks him into a wall, and neither of them realize that in five, ten, twenty years, they will trust the other with their life.

**Photograph** - _Utakata_

He stares at the photo as if it would ease the betrayal, as if it would answer the _why? why? why? _crashing around his head. He squints at his master, grinning proudly, and himself, almost smiling, almost trusting the figure next to him. He looks at the photo for a long time, and then he burns it, the smiles melt and he dreams of killing the old man again.

**Wings** - _Fu_

She doesn't like a lot of things, and the giant insect buzzing around her head is top of the list. But when she nearly falls to her death and suddenly finds herself flying through the air, she can't deny that having wings is _freaking awesome. _

**Mortality** - _A's Cousin_

It's a strange thing, knowing that you are going to die soon, that the clock is in its final hours. He knows the Hachibi will escape, that he is not compatible, he can feel the seal slowly dissolving to nothing on his stomach. The boy, Bee, sleeps on. _Let him sleep soundly_, he thinks, _it's not his burden yet. _

**Break** - _Mito_ _Uzumaki_

She is having her first child and the Fox is waiting, _You are going to die, _it tells her matter-of-factly,_ the seal is going to break_. But she turns to see Hashirama looking even more terrified then she feels, and she steels herself against the demon, because she knows that she is loved, and she is not alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Simple** - _Gaara_

It was so easy for his siblings to accept his apology that Gaara does not believe they mean it. But as time goes on, and he finds himself dragged into petty sibling fights and trusted with deep secrets, he learns that sometimes forgiveness is just that simple.

**Music** - _Yugito_

She does not take up the shamisen because she likes it, but because it gives her something to do. With her concentration focused on plucking the correct strings, she can ignore the oppressing silence in her house, and the linger of memories in her doorway.

**Hopeful** - _Yagura_

His goal, above all, was acknowledgement and respect. So when he stands and makes his first speech as Mizukage, and sees the rapport attention of every villager on him. Yagura thinks, with a smile, that finally everything is going right.

**Grave** - _Roshi_

He digs an empty grave near his house, and carves a single name, '_Han_', in stone. There is no body to bury, and nobody would care to attend anyway, so Roshi stands alone in the rain, with only shadows for company, and murmurs something about peace.

**Polite** - _Han_

Han sometimes wishes he could swap his bijuu for something more terrifying, because the Five-Tails is never anything but unfailingly polite whenever they spoke. It was hard to stay mad at it for ruining his life, when it keeps apologizing and trying to_** get along.**_

**Nostalgia** - _Utakata_

As a child, he always wanted to know the future. _What kind of shinobi would he be? What would happen to his classmates? How strong would the Mist Village be?_ But now, he thinks wearily, as he throws his hitai-ate into the sea, he doesn't like the answers. He just wants to go back to when he was young and ignorant, and believed the world was fair.

**Temptation** - _Fu_

Sometimes she's tempted to just run away one mission and become a hermit in the mountains. She wouldn't have to have her entire life planned out by the Elders, a weapon to be used until its broken. She sometimes lets herself live entire lifetimes elsewhere, before someone knocks on her door and wakes her from her reverie, back to her apartment on the outskirts.

**Coping** - _B_

He knows that things change when you become labelled "not-human", and when his friends disappear into the background, one by one, he can't say it doesn't hurt. But things always get worse before they get better, you keep laughing, and sooner or later the world laughs with you.

**Future** - _Kushina_

She remembers a woman who once told her to fill her heart with love. That, Mito said, is what kept a jinchuuriki strong. As she fades from her body, and Minato holds her close, Kushina can only hope that her son lives a life as happy as hers.


End file.
